Bega’s racing Royal

BUILT by Nicholas Bouquet the Royal Hotel served-up thirsty travellers with accommodation and hospitality in Gipps Street Bega for almost 40 years before it was forced to shut shop by the NSW Government’s local option polls in 1911.

The Royal was established by 29-year-old Jimmy Kiss after he gained a license to open on July 1 1873 at the Bega Police Court. The Bega Gazette reported on Thursday 26 June 1873:

License

Mr. Castle applied for a Publican’s license for J. Kiss. The Bench were informed by S. C. Wells that the house would contain ample accommodation, and the stabling would be sufficient. The Bench – If he had good stabling he was entitled to a license. None of the houses in the town had stabling worthy of the name. License granted.

Jimmy was a noted horseman and as a result the Royal gained a strong association with the racing fraternity, with a number of its future publicans also having a strong interest in the ‘sport of kings’.

Jimmy’s brothers, Dave, Billy and Tom, were the largest cattle dealers in the southern district during these times. They over-landed thousands of bullocks across the border to Gippsland in Victoria. Like his brothers, Jimmy was said to have been a splendid horseman, and it was a common occurrence to see him throw his hat or stock whip to the ground, and, galloping past, stoop from his horse and pick up either article: or he would jump off his horse at full gallop, and throw himself in to the saddle again.

Less than a year after opening the Royal, Jimmy nearly lost a guest dining at his pub. An accident that nearly proved fatal, occurred when a man, while at dinner, was choked by swallowing a large piece of beef, and started to choke. Dr. Evershed was called, and it was reported at the time “that the mouth of the sufferer was so firmly closed that it was only by the use of a mallet and piece of wood that it could be opened, and the doctor after many efforts extracted the piece of meat, which weighed nearly three ounces, from the uvula”. The Kiama Independent reported on July 9 1874 that after about an hour’s suffering, “the unfortunate man recovered”.

Jimmy left the Royal in 1876 after the death of his wife, hosting the Nimmitabel Hotel, and later the Commercial Hotel in the same town. In his later years he moved to Green Street opposite the Victoria Barracks, in Paddington Sydney, where he died at the age of 77 in May 1921.

The Royal was frequented by large gangs of road workers who came to work in the district. At one point, the Royal was selling the cheapest beer in town, which forced the other eight pubs in the town to lower their prices. More on that later.

After Local Option Polling forced the closure of the Royal, Bega’s Southern Star newspaper reported on Saturday 10 June 1911.

The Royal Hotel, Bega, which has just closed up in accordance with the Local Option Court, had many licensees during its career of nearly 40 years. It was opened by the late “Jimmy” Kiss, who sold to Mr. Thos. Mooney, who later on passed it on to his brother “Mick.”

Then Mr. James Hutton had it for years. Those were the days in which Rixon and Macleod’s sale yards were situated just above the hotel and it used to be a very busy spot on market days.

Later on Mr. Hutton moved out and opened the Metropolitan Hotel, the Royal passing to Mr. Plowright (from Bombala). The late Tom Dunn (also from Bombala) next took it, and did a lively business for some years, navvies and others coming from long distances to knock their cheques down at Dunn’s – and they used to make big cheques in those times.

Mr. Dunn later on came down to the Occidental, and sold the Royal to Mr. “Joe” McKee (now of Towamba), who in turn sold to Mr. “Jack” Donnelly.

Then came the late “Jack” Gay, who was killed at Cooma a few years back, and from him it passed to Mr. Brice, and later on to Mr. Hill (who died there). It was Mr. Hill who brought the price of beers down to 3d in Bega, and the other hotels, although holding out for some time, soon followed suit. Mr. P. McGuinness and Mr. D. Lambert followed as licensees, and then Mr. Ralph Kavanagh held it for some time, and Captain Wilson was the last to grace its halls. The old place has seen some lively times, and a book might be written of the many incidents surrounding its career.

When the pub closed, there were just five watering holes left in Bega. The last publican of the Royal marked the pub’s demise with a symbolic gesture, the Braidwood Dispatch reported on Saturday 17 June 1911.

When the Royal Hotel at Bega closed the other week the licensee turned the tap and allowed half a cask of beer to run to waste, and as it flowed both the licensee and the groom reverently lifted their hats to the departing.

The old Royal was later used as a boarding house and private home. The building was still standing in August 1946 when a strong gale damaged part of the roof. It was demolished to make way for a BP petrol station, according to the Bega Pioneer Museum’s website.

Can anyone give us a date when the Royal was demolished, and it’s excact location?

2 replies

The exact address was 96 Gipps Street. It was demolished in 1960 or 1961 the year my family moved out. It was purchased for 580 pound and used as the private residence of “Brickie” Smith and family for at least 15 years. Looking at the picture further to the right the rooms which included the old kitchen was rented to Myron Kelly the ” Bega Bomber.”

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NO HIDDEN TREASURE

The thief who slipped out of a Warwick hotel on Saturday night with two suit cases belonging to a boarder found a surprise awaiting him when he examined the contents. The cases contained 60 left-footed rubber shoes. They were the samples of a commercial traveller. The suit cases and shoes were discovered yesterday under Helene-street Bridge, where they had evidently been tossed in disgust by the thief.
- Warwick Daily News (Qld) Monday 3 October 1932.

LUNATICS PRANK

SYDNEY Monday.
A man, who was a former inmate of Callen Park Lunatic Asylum, walked into a hotel at Mosman, glared at the barmaid for a few minutes and then jumped over the bar and drew an iron bar from his pocket, smashing 24 bottles of wine and 10 of whisky. He then recrossed the bar and sat on a seat in the room. The police arrested him.
- Daily Standard (Brisbane, Qld) Monday 29 October 1923.

Olympian visits Scarborough pub

LAST week 'Short Rounds' ran a story about the Scarborough Hotel's genrous offer of a free meal to all Olympic and Paralympic medallists.
Steve, the manager of Cooneys Hotel in Wollongong, heard about the offer and showed up at the Scarborough dressed in a Cuban Olympic athlete's tracksuit with a 1975 Woonona netball gold medal around his neck.
Complete with Cuban accent he told the publican he had come to collect his free meal!
When the Scarborough publican asked the five-foot-nothing 'Cuban' what he had won the medal for, he replied: "Heavy-weight boxing, man."
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- Mirror (Perth, WA) Saturday 13 March 1948.

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Our contemporary thinks it not at all improbable that ale from Melbourne-on-Yarra may become as famous as beers from Burton-on-Trent and complacently reflects that 'if Australia can meet England on the vatted field, and beat her on her beer barrels, there is undoubtedly a great future awaiting this Austral continent'.
-Australian Brewers' Journal, December 1891.

BEER BURGLAR

For several days the proprietor of Skinner's Hotel, Murwillumbah, and bar tenders, noticed that the beer was going off fast, and were at a loss as to the cause. An aboriginal, Billy Moore, was caught red handed coming from beneath the house with a couple of billy cans. The beer cellar is situated under the house, and is barricaded with battens and barbed wire. Moore, who must have had an accomplice, tunnelled underneath the barricade, and turned the tap and filled his billies. He was sent along to Grafton gaol for a month.
- The Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser (Qld.) Friday 25 April 1913.

LAST LAUGH

Brown: "Young Smart, of the Grand Hotel, has got the laugh turned against him in his little joke against the Blazes Fire Insurance Company."
Robinson: "How?"
Brown: "He insured five hundred
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Robinson: "And they laughed at him I suppose."
Brown: "No, they had him arrested on a charge of setting fire to his own property."
- Camperdown Chronicle (Vic.) Tuesday 10 March 1914.

GREAT BEER MYSTERY

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- Shepparton Advertiser (Vic.) Friday 24 December 1948.